


the best years of our lives

by PikaCheeka



Category: DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel)
Genre: Childhood Sexual Abuse, Drugs, M/M, Medical Abuse, Other tags to be added, Slow Burn Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence, Yakuza, long fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2018-12-02 10:48:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11507835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PikaCheeka/pseuds/PikaCheeka
Summary: Virus & Trip learn to navigate the world beyond the institute, separated for two years before reuniting to slowly take control over the Midorijima underworld.It isn't an easy journey, and their power over their own lives can be deceiving as they learn that adjusting to life outside of a cage means more than simply walking away from it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I admit I was fanfic-emotionally-drained from writing "the history that produced them" and it's taken me some time to write postable work again (I have tons of self-indulgent scraps though! Like...30 doctor x Virus drabbles lmao oops BUT I can post them if anyone is interested, I guess). I've been working on the beginnings of a long ViTri fic chronicling their adjustment to the real world after being at the institute for so long. I'm not quite sure where it will go, but it's been enjoyable to write so far. I wanted to have a decent chunk of it written before posting the first chapter, and I've roughly finished a few of them. So here is the first! I will probably update roughly every 2 weeks, though I will continue to write other fics so it might not quite work out that way.
> 
> Each chapter will have a Virus section and a Trip section (at least until they reunite).

 

**Virus**

The apartment is too big. That’s the first thing he notices. It’s too open, too spacious. He’s used to a cage, though at least the apartment carries the same weight of sterility as the institute, he supposes. _Impersonal_. _Empty. Cold_. Surroundings he can melt into. He’s surprised to find it has two bedrooms, one of which has been turned into an office, a kitchen he can’t imagine using, a lounge area, and a full bath complete with a sizeable hot tub. It’s more space than he can comprehend, more than he is comfortable with, used to a shared bunk or a cot in a room with a dozen other kids.

When he opens the closet, he finds it is already filled with clothing. Nothing exciting – a suit, a couple of shirts, an extra pair of dress pants – but different enough from what he is used to, to be alarming. Formal clothing to complement the pants and cardigan they’d given him at the same time they’d taken his collar off. He absently glances at the note he’d found on the table again, describing exactly what he can expect to find here. Clothing in his size, though of course he’d be expected to buy more with his own money, a stipend of which would be in his new bank account. Enough food in the kitchen for a week. A new Coil and a laptop and instructions on how to use some of the household appliances. A map of Platinum Jail and of Oval Tower itself, though nothing of the Old District, as if he were expected to remember what he’d left nine years ago. And of course, his expected schedule for the next several days, complete with 36 hours of _adjusting_ allowed before he had to look presentable and pretend to care about anything.

He methodically tears the paper to pieces as he stares out the window at the artificial sky. _He’s used to a cage._

-

Takahashi is pleasant, harried and strung out simmering just below the surface. It’s the first thing Virus notices about him – how simple it would be to push his buttons, to unhinge him, to _play_ with him. The younger man has always liked people like that, and he finds himself at ease with him. He can’t be much older than him, only twenty-three or twenty-four, shorter, almost certain to be a little soft in the belly behind that desk, and clearly feeling inadequate in some way around him. _Endearing_ , Virus thinks, and the more he smiles at him, the more Takahashi sweats.

"Your primary job is to watch Sei. You know who he is, already.”

Oh I know. _I was only told a thousand times how superior a human he was to the rest of us, how we were cut apart and rebuilt to withstand his powers, how we live for him._ An uncomfortable moment passes before he realizes Takahashi is waiting for some acknowledgment. “Yes, I know of him.”

If the older man notices the bite to his words, he doesn’t react. “He doesn't need 24/7 assistance, fortunately, as he's an invalid and rarely leaves his quarters. You need to be there for his public appearances and when he uses Usui. That amounts to maybe eighteen hours a week of mandatory assignments. Spend another ten or so hours giving him some company. Buying him things, talking to him, watching TV with him. He can't do much so he could use some friendship."

"Enthralling.” _Hopefully you haven’t been buying him things until now, because if you bought that suit for me, it fits horribly._ But he’s polite as he examines his nails. “Why was I physically trained to be a bodyguard then?"

"You're going to be his bodyguard, so you're going to keep working out, because you have to look good on camera and make everyone who sees you think that Sei is important enough to require a bodyguard."

"And he's not."

"Not yet," he sighs. "There isn't much threat here in Platinum Jail anyway. But we need to give off that appearance."

It's too much information, too bitter. _He's trying to impress me._ Virus bites back the grin. "I feel like you're telling me more than you should. So indulge me. How much will I be getting paid here?"

Takahashi glances at Virus, a brief flickering of his eyes beneath the glasses before looking down at the paperwork again. He folds his hands, sighs, drums his foot on the ground. "Do you want...the packaged story or the truth?"

"The truth. Though why are you telling me?" But he knows already. Because Takahashi isn’t so much older than him, a social climber easily intimidated by the smell of new money or a pretty face. He's someone who thinks he's seen hardship, but quails at the sight of someone who has clearly experienced it, someone who feels important working for Toue, but gets nervous when he thinks too deeply about what his boss is actually doing. _He's read my files,_ Virus realizes with a jolt. _This better not be pity. I won't have that._

He shrugs and slides a paper across the desk to him. "The truth is that the bulk of your paycheck is going into paying for your apartment here in Oval Tower. You'll end up with about 30% of this figure after taxes, insurance, and the housing cut. He assumes...you're going to be earning money through your Yakuza connection, which he said he's set up. They will pay you as an honorary member."

"Why would they pay me for that?" _Thirty percent_. He wonders if Toue considers the surgeries done on him as a child as a favor to be collected on.

"For the honor of having one of Toue's prime models in their midst?" But he doesn't sound convinced as he clears his throat and passes him a few more forms to sign. "You'll also be expected to eventually establish a Rhyme team..."

"I don't even play Rhyme."

He blinks, and Virus notices absently how long his eyelashes are. _He's sort of cute. Could be, if he did something with that hair and got some new glasses._ "What. I thought..."

"He told you he only collects kids who are good at Rhyme, didn't he? A lie. I've never played." He glances at his nails again, feigning disinterest while storing away every word. He’s played this game before, but he never expected it to be this easy, this entertaining, in the real world. The institute had been so isolated, it was easy to pit everyone against one another, to sow seeds of distrust and confusion, and it had even grown boring after a time.

"That doesn't matter, I guess. You just need to lead a team of ghosts. They'll be under our control. You just have to keep everyone in order, but that's far down the road. Right now we just wait for the game to gain ground, give it a few years. You'll have a partner eventually, and once that happens, then we can start moving. Just keep it in mind." He's babbling, nervous, and Virus watches his fingers with amusement.

"My partner's going to be Trip, right? 07734? He's the only one I'll work with." There’s a lot there he wants to ask – _a team of ghosts_ – but the words spill out of him.

Takahashi runs something through his computer, eager to change the topic of conversation. "There is a note on his file that he's a possibility, but he hasn't had the eye surgery yet. If it's a success with him and he finishes the training even half as well as you did, then... But he's not even quite twelve now. I'm not sure Toue would want to wait that long... There are other names on this list. It's hard to say this early. You were the oldest to get this far." More babbling, more shifting eyes as he realizes that he has only been turned towards another forbidden topic.

Because he knows Virus knows this knows well, images of bodies in the basement incinerator flashing through his mind. "Can’t he get out earlier? And can I see the list?"

He bites his lip as he deliberates, and Virus smiles his most gentle smile at him. Takahashi breaks within seconds _\- it's not pity, after all_ \- and sighs as he swivels the screen to face him. "There's only four right now. One is in recovery from the surgery and the other three have yet to go. 

Virus keeps smiling as he looks at the list, memorizes the other three numbers, and stores them away deep in his mind. Three of them won't be able to make it. It's that simple. Because he's going to finally start getting what he wants, now that he has left those white walls and the grasping hands that dominated so much of his life.

The older man, _barely more than a boy_ , Virus thinks to himself, clearly knows he has gone too far, has broken his boundaries, because he abruptly switches the screen off and stands up. “Is everything going well with your apartment? Find everything okay? I’m happy to help you with the transition process in any way possible…”

“It’s fine.” But it isn’t fine. It’s too big; he doesn’t want to go back to it. The only change he’s made was to buy a new bed, a four-poster with curtains that he can pretend is a cage, though he had ordered it with funds he didn’t realize wouldn’t be replaced very easily. “I don’t really know what to do with my time though… I’m not used to this kind of liberty.”

Takahashi frowns then, glances at his hands and shrugs helplessly, and Virus knows then that his awkwardness is not feigned in the least. He isn’t adept at this life. He’s new to it. He’s not even from around here with that accent, an accent not unlike _Trip’s_. Kansai. A small city kid working for the richest man in the country. Only knows how to work, how to push papers and take orders and boss the people below him around, can only comprehend a life where he is useful, but only useful to certain individuals, and because of that he has doubtless crushed everyone around him to come out on top. People like that don’t know how to do anything outside of their job. They _are_ their job.

And so Virus grins at him then. “I know you’re busy, but what do the slackers around here do for fun?”

When Takahashi straightens up, unconsciously fixes his tie, and smiles broadly, Virus resists the urge to reach up and touch his teeth. _One won over_.

-

 _Get used to the sights. Visit a club or two. Have fun._ That's what he was told to do, and it's what he does, albeit fun is questionable.

Because the club is hell. A thousand gyrating bodies, the air reeking of sweat and the floor sticky with spilled alcohol, music so loud he can feel it pounding behind his eyes, lights pulsating from every direction. Not even his worst drugged nightmares could reflect this sort of chaos, but he manages to maneuver it. He’s been through far more than most his age, he knows, and he can figure this out.

At least he knows about drugs, having been pumped full of so many for so much of his life, having read so many medical texts, having a borderline addiction to morphine and an alarming knowledge of cocaine, of ecstasy, of a dozen street drugs ranging from Devil’s Balls to Selia. And he knows about alcohol, though that is something no other child at the institute knows about, because no one else was ever brought to the head doctor’s home and given coffee and alcohol. And he knows the truth of people, that they are nothing but selfishness and lust under a veneer of good intentions, a veneer that doesn’t even exist under these strobe lights, which he finds himself thankful for.

But he doesn’t know about _women_. He touches a girl for the first time, one of those ethereal beings kept in a separate building but for a handful of doctors and nurses who were so buttoned up, who avoided his eyes because they knew what happened to him, knew what showed up on exams that couldn’t be explained by anything else, who preferred keeping their jobs over saving him, and therefore couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge his existence. She approaches him at the bar, rubs her body against his and winks at him and he follows her to the dance floor, slips his hands up her shirt and strokes her tits as she vibrates against him, strung out on any one of a dozen drugs circulating the room. He thinks about taking it further, about luring her away, but there will be time enough for that. _He’s free now_.

For forty-seven minutes. Because when the man who approaches him after the third girl slowly but firmly takes his upper arm and guides him towards the back of the club where the restrooms are, he doesn't resist. He knows what will be expected of him, what has always been expected of him, and it's easier to just do it and hope he can use it as leverage later than it is to resist. When the stall door closes behind them and he feels the slightest pressure on his shoulder, he immediately drops to his knees and reaches for the man's belt. It's easy, a task he's performed hundreds of times as he takes the dick in his mouth and swirls his tongue over his head. Foul, unwashed, nothing like the doctors he is used to, but he swallows back his disgust and keeps going. _Get it over with, wear him out and maybe he won't want to do anything else_. And the man crows and jeers him on, pulls his hair and forces him to swallow it down when he comes. When it's over, he unexpectedly pushes Virus back, puts himself away and pulls his wallet out. A thousand yen bill waves in Virus' face.

"Huh," he wipes his mouth and stares at him.

"Isn't this what you want?"

He doesn't answer. Now he's staring at the money, confused. This isn't what he's used to, because what he's used to is doing this for free, doing this just because someone wants him to. But he also knows intuitively that the bill being waved in his face isn’t enough. "Dunno."

"You're too cute to do this for free," the man sighs and drops it on the floor in front of him before stalking off.

He looks at the bill for a long moment. And then he rinses his mouth in the sink as he shoves the money in his pocket and walks out the door. He knows what he wants then, because while there is time, there isn’t time _enough_ to forget.

It isn’t hard to find a girl willing to take his hand and follow him out of the club, follow him to a seedy three-hour hotel he’d noticed on the walk over. He isn’t even sure if she’s one of the women he’d touched earlier, but he supposes it doesn’t matter.

 

**Trip**

The descent is sharp, violent, brutal, excruciating, a rift he feels down to the marrow, splitting every bone in his body and poisoning his blood. He always knew they would have to part ways, knew that the other boy was six years and two months and nine days older than him, which meant he would get out that much earlier, which meant they would have to spend that much time apart. But none of that means he must accept it.

He also knows that he must be useful, that he needs to prove his worth so that they will continue to consider him a success, a potential partner for Virus when he gets out. But that is difficult when his grounding light is ripped away from him, when all that was keeping him stable is no longer a whisper in his ear and a hand on his shoulder when the worst of the fear and the rage hits him.

All that keeps him from entirely breaking is the memory of him, a new awareness that he's developed in the weeks since Virus had left. Because he now fantasizes about him more than he cares to admit, fantasizes about doing _things_ to him.

“How are you feeling today?”

He’s jerked out of his thoughts then. It’s absurd that they only send him to a psychotherapist _now_ , when he is fully aware that he should have been seeing one for the last six years. It’s as if they don’t think he knows what this is all about, that it’s just another experiment. They hardly care about him, are only curious as to how _this wrenching apart_ has affected him. And so he only stares at with baleful eyes and refuses to speak.

“Still silent, I see.”

It's been weeks since he said a word, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. The doctors here seem at a loss with him, which at once amuses and alarms him. A part of him fears that if he doesn't behave, if he doesn't speak and play the good child, he won't receive the eye surgery, he won't be released, he won’t ever see him again. But he can't seem to do a thing. When he opens his mouth only silence comes forth, a raw pain emanating from deep inside of him, emanating from that _absence_.  

And as if the man in front of him knows what he’s thinking, he smiles sadly at him, and something about the way he glances at his notes, flips a page on the clipboard and makes a tut-tutting sound, the sound one makes when disposing of a dead cockroach, spurs Trip forward into doing something he hasn’t done yet in these sessions.

He signs, a jerky, rapid motion he hasn’t bothered with since _he_ left. Even if this is just an experiment, even if they are only fucking with him as they always have been, he has to pretend. He’s never liked pretending. _Mourning_.

The doctor looks startled for the barest of moments, but he conceals it quickly enough, and Trip is silently relieved that he understands him, that he didn’t read it as some _twitch_. A _defect_. But his relief is short-lived as the man with the clipboard asks, “Over…?”

Trip scowls again then, a curl of his lip that he knows reveals enough of his canines to make nearly every other patient here back up. _He knows exactly what. He just wants me to say it_. _Acknowledgment is the first step of acceptance and all that shit._ He signs a quick, _you know._

“E-31337? He isn’t dead.”

 _Near enough._ He doesn’t like admitting this, but that sound of disapproval had struck a chord deep in his marrow. He needs to cooperate, if only enough to keep them from discarding him. Corpses in the basement furnace. Virus’ thin fingers curling around his as he points and whispers, calmly explains why they are there.

“You are very attached to him. Almost as if…”

 _I’m a dog who found his master._ But he signs nothing. This hesitancy in the doctor is meant to be manipulative, but it comes across as weak, and he finds himself loathing the man more than ever.

And then, “He can call you, if he wants to.”

 _Yea like my mum could._ But he’s alarmed at this. Can he really call? Why hasn’t he? But even as the thought crosses his mind, he dismisses it. Virus wouldn’t call. He isn’t that kind of person. Even if they _needed_ each other, which they of course don’t, Virus wouldn’t notice. There was a viciousness to his emotional detachment, a drive that Trip at once absorbed the meaning of but could not articulate.

“You don’t even know who your mother is.”

Trip grinds his teeth. He can’t believe he’s having this conversation, that this grown man is acting like a child. He doesn’t remember his mum, but he isn’t sure _remember_ could ever be the right word. Can anyone remember being squeezed out of a birth canal? Memory requires a consciousness, and he doubts he’d even drawn breath for the first time before she was gone. He says all this now, with his hands, sure he is mis-signing occasionally, as he and Virus had their own language, and unsure if what rudimentary skills he’s learned even offers this capacity of thought, but he must be getting some point across, because now the doctor is staring at him with an intensity none of them had ever graced him with before.

“It was always a bit of a mystery why he spent so much time with you, but now...” he trails off.

Trip bites back a grin then. He knows then, that he’s won another day. He’d given enough, just _enough_ , not to play their game the way Virus could, but to keep them interested in him. Keep him on the list. Give them just enough now and then so that they can’t throw him out. Prove to them that he has indeed been a worthy investment and not just because of _him_. Though it is all because of _him_ , because Trip knows that he’d be dead without him, that he’d have succumbed to the violence within himself and forced the doctors to dispose of him before he was even ten. Virus, and the possibility of seeing him again, of _being_ with him again, is enough to make him endure. Still, he signs a sarcastic, _Smart tests failed you, huh?_

“You never behaved enough for them to work.”

There’s nothing he can say to this truth, so Trip performs a universal symbol that leaves no room for misinterpretation. He gives him the finger.

 

\- chapter 1 end -


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Virus ascends while Trip descends as both begin down a path of no return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the second chapter! Thank you, all, for waiting. This one features a new first-meeting between Virus & mentor-san when he joins the Yakuza (different from Thursday Night), and a disastrous encounter at the facility for Trip. 
> 
> I will be traveling for the next month, but I will still definitely be posting fic from time to time until I get home! I will probably start putting up some of the Virus gangbang self-indulgence because I got an anon request for it and might as well.

**Virus**

The ascent is gradual, violent, brutal, exhilarating, a rise he feels down to the marrow, enforcing every bone in his body and poisoning his blood. He knows that power suits him, that his skills of manipulation and seduction, backstabbing and blank expressions, can make him useful, wanted, needed, until he is the one pulling all the strings. He’d almost attained that back at the institute, _almost_ , though he still had to give up much for it, not that what he gave up means anything any longer. And now he stands before the Fukuhonbuchi of the Midorijima Yakuza.

“On your knees,” one of the men standing behind him snaps.

He startles, blinks in confusion for a moment before he remembers the etiquette lessons he’d been forced to take and drops to his knees, prepared to bow or prostrate himself if necessary. It doesn’t matter how humiliating it is, he figures, if it will get him what he wants.

“What do you want?”

"You're supposed to take me in." Nobody looks impressed, not the strangely intimidating man sitting in front of him in a half-buttoned shirt and cowboy boots and more rings than Virus had ever seen on a human, not the bored woman playing with a lighter beside him who was clearly a mistress of sorts, not any of the flunkies flanking the back of the room and trying not to laugh. It infuriates Virus, he finds, but there's nothing he can do. He's so far out of his territory at this point, so he just has to bite back his rage and continue to smile and do what he's told. So he clears his throat and flashes his teeth. "Toue surely informed you of me, hm?"

There's a long and uncomfortable moment before the man finally speaks. "Listen, kid. In order to operate on this island as openly as we do, we already give Toue" - he says the word like it's a swear - "Fifteen percent of what we pull in from various activities. He grants us limited and undocumented access to the airport and the ferry and.... that's about it, isn't it? We get to siphon off some funds from all the rich fucks he invites here, but we ain't allowed into Platinum Jail so we can only get so much. No reason to trust him. The last batch of police who signed on for this island aren't as cheaply paid off as they used to be, so he isn't vetting them like he is supposed to. We know you ain't a spy because he has no reason for that. He seems to think he's doing us a favor by passing along one of his toys that we'll have to pay for no reason. He only needs you to steal from us and we don't need you either. Why should we take on a fucking goombah because he said so?"

"Goombah?" Virus blinks. It's the only part of this conversation he can grasp onto, because the rest of it is nothing like what he'd heard back in Oval Tower, though given what Takahashi had told him about his paycheck, it’s hardly surprising. Toue and reality apparently do not get along very well.

"You're white," he spits. "With that damn black on black suit you look like a wop. Don't care what you are though, you’re white."

"Half white."

He leans forward then and sighs, folds his hands. "Let's get something straight here, kid. You're not in your little training facility for stuck up shits anymore. You're not top of the class anymore. You're not even in Platinum Jail anymore. You got no protection out here, because frankly, Toue doesn't uphold his end of the bargain enough for us to be careful with his goods, and if you run into an accident out here... you get the picture. So." He raises one a finger. "First step to us liking you. Stop being smart."

"It wasn't..." and he shuts his mouth.

"Good. Fast learner," and with that he sits back and pulls a cigarillo out of his pocket. "What were you going to say now?"

Virus hesitates, unsure if this is a trap, but in the end he supposes it's better to answer a question than to assume, lest he look paranoid. He puts on his best submissive voice, his hurt voice. "It wasn't a training facility for stuck up shits. I don't know what you hear out here but that isn't it."

"So what is it? Half-wop."

He weighs his options a moment, fights the urge to ask for a smoke while he considers. The man has a wedding ring buried under all the others, as does the woman sitting next to him looking supremely disinterested. Not a mistress perhaps, but a wife. Even if they don't have kids, they probably know people who do; they're old enough to be his parents, after all. Telling the truth can work to his advantage here, make him more valuable, instill more distrust and disgust in Toue. He can see the rift, and knows if he plays his cards right he can be the wedge that drives them apart, brings the downfall of Toue. They don't need a spy. _Yet_.

"It's a facility for human experimentation. He takes poor kids, kids off the street, children of whores and drug addicts and desperate single moms. And he has doctors play with us." He can see now that the cigarello is held, forgotten, in his hand, see the smoking spiraling from the growing column of ash, and he pushes on. "Test new drugs on us. New kinds of brain surgery. Gene splicing. Bioengineering. I'm only the top student because I'm one of the few who survived."

"And how did you survive?"

He doesn’t think this warrants an answer, and anyway silence is likely to be more effective. He drops his gaze.

It doesn't take the man before him long to understand. "Jesus."

He risks a glance at the woman then, who hasn't moved, hasn't reacted. It isn't what he expects. _Cold bitch._ But the man is emotional, the man can be swayed, and he realizes then it's because the man likes him. "So I can be useful."

"Cut the shit. I don't need that." But there is a flicker in his eyes that Virus catches and knows well as the man abruptly changes the subject. "What else can you do?" 

Or not. Apparently he can't fuck his way through this situation. "I can help you corner the market in experimental drugs. I have access to things, can get in and out of Platinum Jail easily to establish a demand, and I have experience. I know what to do." He stops again, considers. _Trip._ "And I know someone who can be useful to you in a few years. As a cleaner."

"Someone in there? We don't have a shortage of people willing to do that."

"He'd do anything without even blinking." He doesn't add that he's currently twelve years old.

"Huh." But he isn't interested. "You'd shape up nice, I think. Speak any other languages? For _business_?" He snarls the last word.

"English. Mandarin. Russian." He shrugs then, stating them flatly, as if a list, as if there might be more that he knows a little of but can't be bothered to add them.

He whistles softly. "They make you learn all that at _that_ place?" He can't name it, the institute. He's disgusted, and Virus bites back a grin as he responds.

"No. I knew English already but pretended I didn't. Russian I learned on my own. They offered rudimentary Mandarin and Korean..." Another shrug.

With that he begins smoking again, shaking off the ashes and blowing smoke out through his nose before nodding. "Huh. So you like going behind Toue's back then, eh?"

Virus shifts his weight from one foot to the other, eager to please but unwilling to admit lack of loyalty. It can backfire just as easily as it can benefit.

He doesn't have to wait long though, because after a moment the man sighs and waves his hand, "Fine. That was unfair. Let's go back to the drugs. I got some questions."

The interrogation, because as far as Virus is concerned, that's what it is, lasts far too long. He finds that as smooth as he speaks, he's terrified of screwing up, because this is a connection he wants with every fiber of his being. This isn't about doing what Toue wants. It's doing what he wants, and he wants to succeed here, wants to be useful, wants an alternative in his life that isn't so wrapped up in his time behind the white walls. And so he says what he has to, making promises he isn't certain he knows how he can keep, but ones he is determined to follow through with regardless. After all, he has connections. At some point the woman leans forward, taps her husband's knee in what is clearly impatience, but he doesn't seem to pay attention as he rattles off another half dozen questions. And Virus keeps up, but he feels his energy draining as he does. He isn't used to this, isn't used to people picking apart his mind, demanding he answer questions in rapid-fire succession. He's smart - he knows he is - but this is nothing that he's ever experienced before. He's used to his body being valuable, not his mind, and he's used to the same group of people. This fast-talking, slang-using, openly aggressive older man in an outrageous outfit is nothing like the cultured, smooth doctors he is used to. He was told he was good with people though. He can handle this, he tells himself, as he feels his palms begin to sweat.

And then, abruptly, he asks, "You got a piece?"

"A what?" He startles at the question, as unexpected and out of place as it is.

"Can't believe you're a bodyguard without a gun. The fuck is Toue doing." He groans loudly.

 _A gun_. He shifts his weight again as he considers. Drive the wedge in deeper, tell them Toue downplays the connection, whines about money. Everyone hates a rich man with money problems. "I asked him if I needed one, but he said it wasn't necessary, said they were too expensive and hard to come by, even with the law being relaxed for citizens who make a certain amount."

"They're only hard to come by if you don't try. He has one, I'm sure of it. Ain't expensive either." More smoke through his nose. "How much is your salary?"

And Virus tells him, adding quickly that his apartment in Oval Tower is paid for, as if he thinks that's enough, as if it makes up for what has happened to him, as if he's grateful for what Toue so graciously gave him. It's a sizeable amount, but not for life in Platinum Jail, where a bottle of water can cost 1200 yen.  Virus had learned that the hard way, learned that the sample shopping and restaurant experiences they had run at the institute reflected mainland Japan prices and availability.

"Disgusting. An apartment he already has just so he can watch you all the time and a pittance." But he isn't looking at Virus now; he's looking down, considering. And then finally he sighs again as he stamps out his light in the ashtray in front of him. "We still do a lot of work without them but they do make life neater. Someone will have to teach you how to shoot, too. That ain't going to be me."

And Virus knows then that he's in.

-

She grabs him by the doorway, surprisingly strong for a woman as she holds him against the wall and presses a business card into his hand.

"Go here at the appointed time. I'll cover the costs. You look like a used car salesman in that baggy suit."

He glances at it. A tailor. Here in the Old District, of course. "I..." _I'm only eighteen. I'm still growing._ There's no point though.

She stares at him disapprovingly. "Get one that's fitted. Buy another when it gets too small. If you want to bat your eyes at married men who may or may not be into boys, you better show off that waist and ass." She abruptly slaps him. "And keep this babyfat. Your face is cute not but if you get any more chiseled you're going to have a tough time. Tone your body but stay pretty."

He's too stunned to respond, to move, to even blink. He's had such limited experience with women, only a handful of the doctors and nurses at the facility being female, and only a few girls at the club, and none like this. None who looked at him with anything but pity or vacancy in their eyes.

But she is apparently used to this level of confusion and horror, because she softens then, smiles and smooths his hair down. "And next time, you bow to me."

"Oh." It all falls into place then. The cold and distant gaze. The hand on the older man's knee. The way he seemed to defer to her. "You're...?"

She exhales softly in what might be a laugh, might be a derisive snort, a sound that reminds Virus of Trip. He never expected a woman who looked so cultured, so sophisticated, to have that kind of edge to her, and he catches himself wondering what Trip will act like in ten years as she taps his chin and winks at him. "You thought my husband was in charge? You're cute."

-

When Virus finally staggers into his apartment, he feels nothing but exhaustion. It's only then when he realizes there are dirty dishes on the table, that he hasn't done laundry in nine days because they changed the washing machine in the apartment building and he can't make sense of its twenty-seven buttons, that there's nothing to eat, and that he has to show up for work tomorrow and report to Takahashi everything that happened. Not everything, he decides, not that he'd promised to siphon off some of Toue's medical supplies, and not the gun. He hadn't realized how draining that entire experience was until he steps into the bathroom and finds his fingers shaking as he struggles with his tie.

When he’s finished, he closes the curtains to his bed and collapses onto the pillows. He needs something, anything familiar, and this isn't enough. _The darkness around him, the small enclosed space._ He can't replicate the past, mimick the world he has spent the last nine years in. But there is one thing he can do, and as he shuts his eyes he breathes heavily through his nose and decides.

 

**Trip**

He's only twelve, almost thirteen now, but he knows he's big for his age, tall, muscular, dangerous, not as big as he will be in five years, ten years if he survives that long and stays fit. It’s a pity Virus couldn’t see him like this, pity that he hit his growth spurt within a month of the older boy leaving, and a pity that the first time his hand came away sticky after touching himself, there was only an empty space that no longer even smelled of _him_ on the cot beside him. The _need_ has been building, burning his insides to nothing because he doesn’t even have a photo. But it doesn’t matter, he tells himself, because he will survive and when he gets out of this hellhole Virus will be waiting for him.

He watches the nurse calmly open the drawer, grab a square of gauze, an alcohol wipe, a bandaid – he’d always found the bandaids ironic – and place everything on the table beside him before lifting the syringe, tapping it once, and smiling broadly at him. _Why do they always smile?_ It bothers him, and he automatically shifts his weight on the exam table.

“This one won’t hurt a bit. Just another vaccine.”

And he lets her get close, lets her wipe his arm with the alcohol swab before abruptly jerking his arm to the side and out. He catches her wrist with ease and grabs the syringe from her with his spare hand. He’s bigger than her, stronger than her, and it takes but a moment to leap off the table, twist her arm back and slam her against the wall as he throws the syringe back onto the tray.

“Mm, what if I’m sick of this shit?” His voice is low, gruff, unused. He can’t remember the last time he’s said a full sentence, and it surprises him that he can remember how to use his tongue.

He briefly considers stabbing her with the needle, but any effect it would have would not be immediate, and therefore not entertaining to watch. He’d rather have something more gratifying _now_ , because unlike Virus, he’d never been particularly patient, and so he shoves her harder up against the wall, pries her legs apart and presses his knees to the wall between hers. It’s surprisingly easy, natural even, and for the briefest of moments he wonders why he hasn’t done this sooner.

He acts on instinct, carrying out what he thinks about nightly, when he curls his fingers around his dick and recalls Virus’ scent, his smile, his tapered fingers, his pale legs and long eyelashes and the dark blonde pubic hair and _below_ that he’d let Trip touch a few times. Twice in the shower room and once, one perfect moment, when they lay in bed together and Virus had let Trip explore his body, when Virus had shuddered and gasped and bucked into his hands. _And then Virus had_ – it’s too much to think about, that memory, the moment when Trip always stops. He realizes then that rarely has he ever considered a woman when he jerked off, that he is momentarily surprised when he wraps his arms around her and grabs her breasts. _It doesn’t matter though. I’ll still get what I want as long as I don’t look at her_.

She makes no effort to fight him off, as if she knows it’s useless. His reputation is well-known at the institute, after all, and everyone knows that he’s liable to break bones with his fists and tear muscle with his teeth. With Virus gone, all other kids by now cower before him, regardless of his age, and most of the nurses and doctors aren’t much better. He isn’t sure if this irritates him, all this meekness around him. Weakness has always been something he despised, one of the many reasons why Virus is so appealing. _A survivor, enduring, adapting, ever shifting and fluid, his primary constant being tenacity and a will to live, to come out on top_. It’s why when the older boy had asked him one day what English word his name should be, he’d promptly replied _Virus,_ a name that he had kept, and a name-giving that he had reciprocated. The thought pushes him to act further, to pull her shirt up, shove his hand down the waistband of her nursing scrubs to touch her as she sobs.

And then he realizes. He's not hard anymore. And he's swearing, hissing, the anger beginning to seep into the edges of his eyesight. Because it isn't good enough. She isn't pretty. She isn't blonde. She isn't _him_. So he steps back a pace and he hits her, not hard, just enough to shut her up. "Stop cryin'. I ain't gonna do it."

She sniffs, and he resists the urge to hit her again, harder this time, before she unexpectedly asks. "Why?"

"Ugly bitch," he says simply. He understands then, as he stares her down, that the kind of women he likes are those at once like and unlike Virus. Older, mixed race, even blonde, but soft, curvy. They have to be similar enough for his fantasies to work, but _different_ enough that he can distance himself, and he knows then that all other men will be unacceptable for him. It’s a startling realization, offputting even, because even as he’d begun to fantasize about the older boy in new ways, it’d never fully occurred to him what it meant.

Before he leaves, he picks up the syringe and studies it a moment. _Just a vaccine._ Whatever it is, it might be useful, and he sticks it in his arm and compresses the plunger. _It’s what he would have done_.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They just want something they can expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took an unexpectedly long time to revise and edit, primarily because of the first half (Virus). Doctor x Virus has been my guilty pleasure for a while, and I felt very weird posting any of it (the scene here is very toned down from what it was originally, but this chapter is darker than the others, content-wise). I also decided to play with some minor worldbuilding. So! Apologies for taking so long with this one, but it's finally done! The next one should be much easier.

**Virus**

 

"What do you want?" The doctor stands in the doorway to his condominium, arms braced against the frame as if unwilling to let anyone see in.

The antagonism is unexpected, and Virus narrows his eyes for a moment. _Maybe he remarried. Maybe he’s living with someone again. Maybe I’m breaking the rules right now._ But it doesn’t matter, he decides. "I want morphine."

He grabs his wrist and pulls his arm out, pushes the sleeve of his jacket up to the elbow. He runs his finger slowly over the track marks on his arm, remnants of street drugs that were never as good as the real thing, makes eye contact to indicate his disapproval. But he clearly isn't surprised. "You know what I will want if you come in."

He tosses his head, shakes the wet hair from under his glasses. "It's fine."

"It didn't seem fine at your checkup last month." _The checkup._ When Virus had blindly, foolishly, shown up to his first medical appointment upon being freed and believed that he was untouchable. When he’d quickly learned that some things never change, that in the presence of doctors he was always a child, always an object to be abused and assaulted.

"I wasn't expecting it. Now I am." He hesitates. There’s no point in lying to him. “It’s too much out there.”

“Too bad you can't have your little friend with you.”

He doesn’t want to think about Trip, not now. He only pushes past him, into the living area he knows all too well. Still a bachelor pad, he notices with satisfaction. He isn’t sure what he would have done had he remarried. So he strips off his clothes as he walks to the bedroom, his pants, his coat, because he knows what is expected of him and he doesn’t wish to grant this man any ceremony _. At least there is no collar anymore._ But he will stop at the shirt.

The older man grabs his arm for the second time that night as he pushes him down onto the bed, starts to pull his sleeve up again. “What are you using, then, if you had to come to me for this?”

He shrugs again, but there is something like guilt on his face as he gently pushes the doctor's hand away.  Fear of being reprimanded. Behaving like a child again. He wishes he didn’t act like this. He also wishes he would stop bringing this up. It’s bad enough he’s here for drugs as it is. “Street stuff. Mostly synthetic. You know how hard it is to get any morphine derivatives out there now, thanks to the US’ little incineration campaign a while back. And the pharmaceutical industry buying up whatever’s left.” He adds this as an afterthought and wonders absently what Toue’s corner in the market is. The opiate epidemic had reached catastrophic levels in the ‘20s, prompting the United States to take the drug war to a new level. The cartels to the south were finally forced into submission, the fields in the Middle East and the Balkans decimated, not only by violence but by laws changing enough to make it less valuable to their primary clientele. And if the United States didn’t need a drug anymore, that meant nobody else was going to get it, because why bother producing if the largest and richest customer base was gone? Now all that was left was sold to the medical industry, so heavily regulated only questionable facilities like Toue’s institute ever got enough to abuse. He doesn’t know why he adds, “I’m not addicted. Just now and then.”

"It must be expensive.” He pauses. “Are you a whore?"

"No,” he snaps. Not that he hasn’t considered it. He hasn’t been fucked by anyone but this man himself since he’d gotten out. Sex with women was easier, to say nothing of novel, and even topping men was something different. Interesting. Maybe someday bottoming will be fun, but not now, not before he learns how to properly _forget_. A skill he’s already adept in, but some things are harder to bury than others.

"Really?" he is clearly taken aback by this, and Virus quietly despises him for assuming. “Your clothing looks expensive.”

“You know part of my job is to infiltrate the Yakuza, right? Just because I was forced to wear sweatpants for nine years doesn’t mean I can’t buy and wear whatever I want out here.”

The doctor places a hand over his face, and the cruelty in his gentleness makes Virus flinch, draw back.

"You’re here because you want a routine that's familiar, is that it? You spent nine years in the institute - the world changed a lot in that time. And now you're suddenly alone, on your own, expected to work and negotiate society, expected to be a bodyguard and a public face of a business and a gangster on top of everything. I'd told Toue it was a bad idea, told him the apartment play we give subjects once they turn sixteen is not enough, that you'd need a more gradual transition."

He opens and closes his mouth once, at a loss for words. This is not what he wants to talk about.

“We can talk later about that though. Just lay back and relax. You came here on your own volition, remember.”

_No shit._ But he doesn’t say it. Instead he thinks about Stockholm syndrome and traumatic bonding, even battered wife syndrome, disorders he’d read about in books left lying around the institute’s library, things that might be useful later in life, things he'd always wondered if he could turn on others, but things he’d always adamantly denied when it came to himself. He wishes, again, that the doctor would stop reminding him who initiated this. But it never gets any further than that, because suddenly there is the cold of lubricant on his ass and fingers and something unexpectedly silicone and he’s hissing and gasping. It has been too long. He isn’t used to this anymore.

And the doctor lays across his chest, props himself up on his elbow and grins at him. "You have to come from just your ass. I'm not going to touch you or thrust it in and out, and it'll be hard for you to get any leverage if I lie on you like this. Have to just use your ass muscles, hm? It won't be easy."

“This is stupid,” he gasps, curling his toes and bracing his feet, testing the weight on his torso as he tries to lift himself. No use. The position is perfect. The sadism isn’t entirely unexpected – this is someone who assaulted a nine-year-old and then sold him to anyone who walked by – but the creativity is. He wonders absently if there is another child now, another subject at the institute that he’s been playing with, if this is something he’s already done before. _Unlikely, if he’s still interested in me at this age. I’m even taller than him now._ But he has to know. _Has to make sure it isn’t Trip._ “Have you…”

He cuts him off. "What if I press this?" he asks as he raises the remote control.

_God_. He hadn’t even noticed, too distracted by the no-longer-familiar sensation of having something inside of him. “Don’t. I’m not ready.”

"Ah. I wonder.." He parts his lips and raises his eyebrows, looks him dead in the eye and watches the expression on his face turn to horror, as he presses it.

He bites back the scream as he throws his head back and chews his lower lip bloody. It’s too much too soon, _but not enough_. He knows this immediately, even with vibrations pressing against his sensitive area, and he’s already shaking with frustration. _Why did I come here? Why can’t he just fuck me normally and be done with it? Because you came here on your own, you idiot._

"Virus," he whispers. "Virus..." He wishes the doctor would call him by his number; he’d always wished this, because the name Virus is of his other life, which the older man knows and uses as a means to torment him now. He grits his teeth and struggles to do what is asked of him, tries to move his hips to get a better angle, but it’s impossible, and his frustration grows, arousal coming in waves but ebbing before he can build on them. "Take my hand," he curls his fingers towards him. "Come on, take my hand."

Virus hesitates only a moment before clutching his hand with a fierceness that belays his desperation. Somehow being able to tighten his grip on something more than blankets is grounding, and he’s able to keep going for some time, digging his nails into him and gaining small satisfaction in drawing blood. _He’ll have fun explaining that at work tomorrow._ He lasts seventeen minutes before he breaks, before he gasps out a desperate “I can’t come. Take it out, please…I can’t…” and curses the tears he feels down the sides of his face.  

“Yes, you can. You need to do it yourself.”

It’s impossible. Virus struggles to arch his back, but the doctor lies across his chest, distributing his weight just so to prevent him from getting any leverage. His voice is soft, at once admonishing and encouraging, the same voice he always used, in both sex and surgery, as if they were the same to him.  “Do you want me to turn it up a notch?”

“No!” His voice cracks as he says it, and as he realizes this he tries to find the command in his voice again before adding, “Take it out.” There’d come a point, back then, when he’d started bossing the adults in his life around, and as long as he still bent over for them, he was able to get his way.

The doctor sighs and shakes his head. “You really haven’t done it in all this time… You used to come like this so easily. You’ll adjust again over time.” In it is the implicit assumption that Virus will be back.

His energy is flagging at twenty minutes, his whole body shaking violently from the exertion, soaked in sweat as he chokes back the noises he still doesn’t want to make. A small satisfaction, because it can be a long night, and the doctor isn’t going to make it easy for him. He won’t move, won’t touch him, ensuring that the only stimulation he has is the vibrator up his ass and thrumming against his prostate so that he can only orgasm if he keeps clenching just right, and will otherwise hover on the edge in agony. He can only writhe, clutching the doctor’s hand in a vice grip as he struggles, face streaked in tears and saliva. At twenty-three minutes he tries to fake an orgasm, which causes the older man to laugh because he knows his facial expressions all too well by now, and at twenty-nine minutes he finally considers giving up entirely. _But the morphine…_

At thirty-three minutes, he climaxes, biting back a cry as he convulses and lets it overtake him for what feels like an eternity. Only then does the doctor touch him, stroke his face and kiss him and murmur that he’s going to fuck him before he’ll let him have a shot of the drug he so desperately needs.

-

"Virus," he whispers then.

The name again. He scarcely responds, unwilling to acknowledge him any more than he has to right now. _I’ve done enough._

"Do you want to hear a story about Trip?"

It isn’t what he expects. He hesitates, torn between needing to know, and not wanting to hear it when being fucked by the man he hates most in the world, especially after that last incident. It was too much, too embarrassing, and he’s uncertain if he wants to hear him sullying his name. _But it might be something bad. He might be dead._ An unexpected wave of nausea overtakes him then, the violence of it so startling that his erection falters in the man’s hand.

"I'm not stopping until you come again so you might want to hear this."

"Fine," he whispers hoarsely, throat raw from earlier. _He should know I couldn’t climax if anything happened to him. It can’t be bad._ And then a second fear seeping into his brain at the thought of having to come again, because he'd hoped he could just lie here, let the older man have his way and be done with it. Even after all these years, he feels the orgasms dragged out of him by this man degrade him, humiliate him. He isn't sure if he regrets coming here, at least until he hears him speak again.

"He assaulted a nurse a few days ago. All but raped her."

_Oh. Well then._ He finally reacts, ignoring the flood of relief. He instead thinks of Trip’s wolfish grin, his lone dimple, his long lashes and cruel eyes, the width of his biceps even at eleven, when he’d last seen him. It’s only as expected, though earlier than Virus imagined, and this pleases him. "Tell me," he breathes.

And he does, a whisper against the back of his neck as he begins telling him the details and Virus moans, shudders. He can feel the doctor grin spread across his skin, just above the tattoo on his neck, because he's doing exactly what is expected of him, but as arousal begins to flood his senses, he can no longer bring himself to care.

-

Despite everything, he lingers for a few days, spending his nights in bed cursing himself and spending his days aimlessly wandering the apartment, eating the older man’s food and nosing through his closets while he goes to the institute and cuts more children up. The food is good and the drugs are good, and it’s nice to not have to worry about running a household for a few days, he reasons. It isn’t the first time, either. Though he’s never told Trip, never told anyone, he has been pulled from the institute for up to forty-eight hours at a time, only once a year at best, but the change of scenery was always worth what he put up with in exchange. It used to surprise him, how the doctor would just leave him there when younger, would trust him enough to not destroy or steal anything, but now it only surprises him that he _doesn’t_ destroy or steal anything. Though now he does something he’d never done before. He swipes the keycard he’d slipped from the older man’s pocket this morning when being roughed up in the kitchen against the lock on the office door. And he plays with his computer.

He’d learned basic hacking skills as a child, with the computers in the institute’s lab, and the doctor had calmly told him his passwords some time ago. _I alternate between these nine._ Information Virus had stored away for two years, uncertain why he was made privy. He wonders absently if they are still the ones he uses. He can easily bypass the lock that three failed passwords would cause, so it’s little work to go down the list. _The eighth password. What an idiot_. Though he knows that this was probably always expected of him.

He’s memorized the other numbers, the other three children on the list with Trip who might be candidates, and it isn’t difficult to dig up their files. He isn’t sure what, if anything, he will do with this information, but he likes having it. It makes this trip almost worth it, he thinks, as he roots through his desk for a thumb drive to steal. Sending the information to himself would be too risky, and it’s easy enough to track what comes out of a printer. As he’s copying and moving the files, he allows the cursor to waver over the folder with Trip’s number on it, but in the end he can’t bring himself to look. Some boundaries are never meant to be crossed.

When he casually mentions, finally, that he is leaving, that he can’t ignore his work any longer, the doctor grabs his legs and pushes him down onto the couch. And Virus lets him, turns his face away and glares at the wall and wonders how long the morphine supply he’d been given will last, how carefully he can portion it out before having to come back. When it’s over, the doctor places a slip of paper on his chest as Virus gasps for air.

“Call this number if you want.”

It’s a long time before he can speak. “Yours?”

“No." 

“Then whose?”

He shrugs and walks from the room, leaving Virus to wipe himself down and find his pants before leaving. He despises himself for knowing he will be back, but he’d be damned if he bothers to call.

 

**Trip**

 

He only lets them do things to him because he knows Virus went through it, because he knows the only way he can truly be like Virus is if he experiences everything he has. Last night in the shower room, his last night with vision, he’d slowly run his hand over his tailbone, up his backbone as far as he could reach. Two at the base of his spine, one halfway up his back, a fourth on the back of his neck. Metal nodes that only the doctors can open to stick tubes in. He doesn't understand what they are for, never bothered to ask. All that matters is that Virus had survived all of this years ago, that they had done this to Trip only two months before Virus left, and the older boy had gently run his mouth over them, murmuring that they'd have matching scars now. It's the only reason Trip endures.

It’s the only reason he allows them to cut his eyes out.

It’s thoughts of Virus that keep him going as he shudders through six weeks of a morphine haze. Morphine, what was once a readily available street drug several decades earlier, now exceedingly rare, horrifically expensive, with hospitals having a chokehold on the limited supply. He knows there is a story there, but whenever Virus had read the news to him he’d been so distracted by his voice he barely ever caught the words. It’s the first time they have ever given it to him for longer than a day or two, and he suspects it’s as much to keep him under control as it is to keep the pain down. They’d never cared much about him being in pain, after all. He’s one of the stronger ones. He should build up a resistance to pain. Forget him though, he’s a nightmare. A brute. Save it for the ones who need it.

The ones like Virus. _I think they give you too much_ , he’d once said. _I need more than anyone else. Why? Because. Come on…why? The extra experiments you get sometimes?_ And Virus had looked him dead in the eye for a moment. _Stop asking, okay? Please._ It was the only time he’d ever said please to him, in the six years they’d been together at the institute, so Trip had stopped asking.

There isn't much to do, as he lies there for six weeks. Six weeks seems questionably long; he had thought that when Virus had the surgery, and he still thinks it now.

Virus. Virus who took the surgery poorly, who had been clearly terrified. Virus who had grown up nearly blind, who spent six years bumping into everything, unable to see faces, and the thought of losing his vision for good was unbearable to him. He'd admitted all of this, some of those days when Trip was allowed to sit with him. And he'd spend all his time just staring at those long white fingers, which more often than not would touch his own hand. Trip had always been afraid to respond, to actually hold hands with him. He never told him how similar they were, how he had also spent six years unable to see faces. Except instead of glasses, he saw Virus. We are the same. In more ways than they can ever comprehend.

He remembers what he’d thought when he’d first laid eyes on him. _Like me, he’s like me._ It wasn’t just external, wasn’t just the fact that E-31337 was the only other non-Japanese person he could ever remember seeing. No – it was more than that, an invisible vein between them. He had known immediately that he would follow the boy in front of him to the ends of the earth, that he was wholly devoted the moment their eyes met. Virus was beautiful, but more than that, he was vicious, tenacious, remorseless, clever and cunning, and Trip knew he would do anything for him. _A dog that found its master_.

His mind wanders during this time, though time and again it returns to Virus. The only reason he endures.

Losing his eyesight for so long isn't as horrible as he'd expected it to be. Perhaps because, unlike Virus, the rest of his senses are honed enough for him to understand what's going on around him. And it's calmer now. He no longer has to take in so much of the world. The sensory deprivation tank they had once plunged him into once a week had been divine, but that was a privilege he lost after assaulting the nurse. Somehow they'd decided that preventing him any way of calming down was the solution to his violence. The irony is not lost on him. He's far more aware, more intelligent, than they give him credit for. Because he's slow to react. He's selectively mute. He's belligerent. He's violent. He doesn't participate. He'd be useless, disposable, were he not a success in every surgery, every drug test, every experiment. Just as Virus had been an ongoing failure, but he'd been so intelligent, so charming and charismatic, so clever and helpful, that he was indispensable.

6:00 Wake up. Shower.

7:00 Eat. Vitals check.

7:30 to 11:30 Classes. Various bullshit that changed from day to day.

11:30 Break.

12:00 Lunch. 

12:30 Various tests. Sometimes surgery for the unlucky ones

15:00 Training. Sometimes in Rhyme. Sometimes in hacking. Sometimes in the gym.

17:30 Break.

18:00 Dinner. Vitals check.

18:30 Last class of the day.

21:00 Free hour. Or therapy of some sort for the fucked up ones. _Like me_.

22:00 Bedtime. Hours of restless twitching.

1:00 When Virus showed up. Sleep.

Because he always slept best with Virus there, his warmth, his sharp knees and elbows, the space between his shoulder blades, his breathing, his heartbeat. He misses all of that now, more than he'd ever missed it in the years and a half they have been apart. Virus had climbed into his cot first, a fact that all of the doctors missed, a fact that the boys never discussed. All Trip knows is that one night, after nearly a month of following Virus around, the older boy slipped under the covers of his cot and told him that he was sick of him kicking and moaning in his sleep, that he was keeping him awake, that maybe if he slept here the nightmares would stop. I don’t have nightmares, he’d replied indignantly, but he’d been overwhelmed by the closeness of him, that perfection that he’d doggedly stalked for so many days now, who had next covered his mouth with a hand, a hand that smelled and felt so good that Trip nearly grabbed him, and whispered, Don’t lie to me. And that was it. The older boy had woken up early and gone back to his own bed before roll call, and after a few nights of this, Trip started going to him. It had been nearly another month before Virus grabbed his arm one morning, told him he didn’t have to leave, because the doctor, a specific doctor, had given his approval for them to be together in nights. Trip had difficulty believing that, because that doctor in particular was brutally cruel, a stickler for the rules, unforgiving of the fact that they were, indeed, only children, but he’d accepted it all, because Virus lying was incomprehensible to him.

He also thinks of the folder inside of his mattress. Paper files seem absurd to him in this day and age, and yet they exist here at the institute. Fifty years ago, people worried about paper trails. Now paper is safer, easier to destroy than evidence on computers. So the pretty things about the children are on the computer. And the less pleasant things, the things that might induce human rights boards to step in, are all on paper. Easily burned in the basement incinerator, just like the children who failed. Virus’ folder. He’d only looked at one page before slamming it shut, shoving it into the slit in his mattress that he’d managed to cut open with a ground-down and sharpened toothbrush. It was too much, too unbearable, and he’d decided that if he still had sight when the bandages came off, he would read it then. Maybe. He didn’t know how much he wanted to know. Some boundaries are never meant to be crossed; he’d realized that when he’d looked at that one page, seen just a few words before slamming it shut again. He thinks of his warmth in the bed beside him. He doesn’t really care if he never sees the folder again.

Apart from that, as he adjusts to a world of darkness, he realizes he isn’t afraid of losing the world around him permanently. Despite pretending to be nearly deaf, his hearing is acute, so much so that he is sometimes paralyzed when people speak to him, so grating, so horrifically loud, are the voices. His skin is more sensitive than it should be, making him acutely aware of even the subtle shift of air when someone enters a room. His sense of smell is better than most humans, though Virus had often told him that he apparently couldn’t ever smell himself. He doesn’t even care much about his sight, except for one thing.

He only fears losing his eyesight because he fears never seeing Virus again.

When they finally take the bandages off he stares in the mirror for a long time. His eyelashes are long, longer than most women’s; he’d been worried that they wouldn’t survive the surgery, that they’d be damaged somehow, that Virus would be disappointed when he saw them. Because Virus likes them, Virus who once pushed him against the wall and licked his eyelids, ran fingers over his lashes. These are so pretty, you know. There were people before him, girls who laughed and touched his face, but the first six years of his life, the ones before Virus, are nothing but a haze now, images slipping here and there through his consciousness. But it’s the color that pleases him far more than the eyelashes.

Blue.

He smiles for the first time since Virus left. He ignores the doctors behind him exchanging glances, writing something down, and he touches the mirror. Blue blue blue. He is a success. He will get out of here someday. He will see _him_ again. And he laughs.


End file.
